Just 10 years ago, Amazon had not produced a single original film. Now, the mega-corporation owns the rights to the James Bond franchise. Considering how far Prime Video has come as both a streaming service and a film and TV production company, it's easy to forget that the platform had to start out with something. As it turns out, that "something" was a modern-day retelling of an ancient Greek tragedy...and a hilarious satire...and a somber commentary on gun violence and crime in Chicago's South Side...that's also kind of a musical.
As bizarre as such a blend of genres might sound, Spike Lee's 2015 film Chi-Raq manages to pull all of them off with surprising effortlessness. Featuring a loaded ensemble cast, including Nick Cannon as eponymous gang leader Demetrius "Chi-Raq" Dupree and Wesley Snipes as the rival gang's leader, the film fluidly oscillates between uproarious hilarity and deeply sincere pathos. But, like many Spike Lee "joints," it frequently goes out of its way to directly remind the audience that the issues it depicts and critiques are all too real. Above all, the film pleads with its audience not to turn their backs on a part of America that many Americans have dismissed as a lost cause.
From Ancient Greece to the South Side of Chicago
Chi-Raq
3.5 /5
After the murder of a child by a stray bullet, a group of women led by Lysistrata organize against the on-going violence in Chicago's Southside creating a movement that challenges the nature of race, sex and violence in America and around the world.
The film's plot is heavily inspired by Greek playwright Aristophanes' Lysistrata, whose titular character leads women from both sides of the Peloponnesian War in a sex strike against their own husbands in hopes of forcing an end to the war. Chi-Raq updates this narrative by placing it against the backdrop of South Side, Chicago in the twenty-first century, although its female protagonist (Teyonah Parris) retains her Ancient Greek name. Furthermore, the film carries over two other elements from the original play: a chorus (played by Samuel L. Jackson) that regularly interrupts the action to directly address the audience, and dialogue that is mostly spoken in rhyme.
But, while most of the film's narrative beats are adapted from Aristophanes' play, the inciting incident for Lysistrata's sex strike is ripped straight from reality. Near the beginning of the film, Lysistrata happens upon the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a little girl named Patti, whose grieving mother Irene (Jennifer Hudson) harshly chastises the bystanders for allowing gang wars and gun violence to take over their community. In 2008, Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew were all fatally shot in Chicago by an estranged relative. Viewers familiar with Hudson's tragic personal backstory likely would have understood her performance of Irene's grief and outrage to be heartrendingly authentic.
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Sadly, Hudson is not the only person who can relate to Irene's unimaginable experience. In a characteristic move for Spike Lee's films, the film explicitly connects its fictional events to the real world. Whereas Lee typically waits until the ends of his films to break the fourth wall, like in Malcolm X (1992) and BlacKkKlansman (2018), Lee opens Chi-Raq with a sequence of statistics showing that, since 2001, more Americans have been shot dead in Chicago than have died in either Afghanistan or Iraq — hence the film's portmanteau title, Chi-Raq. This direct comparison of Chicago to a war zone abroad was controversial, with several Chicago residents and politicians, including then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, demanding that Lee change the title (which he refused to do).
'Chi-Raq' Is a True Tragicomedy
Once the sex strike gets underway, though, the film does a tonal 180 and becomes comedic and farcical. For instance, shortly after Lysistrata and her compatriots begin their sex strike, they decide to take over a local military armory to bring nationwide attention to their cause. Despite being completely unarmed, Lysistrata manages to trick a racist, Confederacy-loving general (David Patrick Kelley) into tying himself to a Civil War-era cannon by seducing him and appealing to the cannon's phallic symbolism. Likewise, when the police and military try to lure the women out of the armory by playing sensual music intended to boost their libidos, the women obtain earplugs to drown out the "bombing" while the already sex-deprived men outside hear the music and become even more lustful.
Given the grim verisimilitude of the film's premise and setting, one might find its comedic and satirical tone shifts jarring and possibly even insensitive. But it's important to ask what purpose the satirical elements serve. The answer is clear: to critique toxic masculinity, which the film suggests is the ultimate driving force of much of the gun violence and gang warfare in Southside Chicago. By depicting male egoism and insecurity in such a ruthlessly derisive manner, the film demonstrates how pathetic and self-destructive such a mindset is. Through this lens, the comedy and tragedy of the film mutually reinforce one another, rather than conflict with each other.
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Moreover, the film juxtaposes its comedic moments with its much heavier moments of social commentary. For example, during Patti's funeral, a local priest (John Cusack) gives a long and passionate sermon in which he lambastes the gun industry (and the politicians whom the gun industry funds) for knowingly profiting off of the deaths of impoverished Black men, women, and children, while situating Chicago's struggle against gun violence within the broader historical struggle for civil rights. Scenes like this remain in the back of the audience's mind even as the film goes into a more satirical direction. It reminds us that, as goofy as Lysistrata's mission might seem, the cause for which she is fighting could not be more dire or noble.
Hope for a Better Future
Perhaps the most succinct encapsulation of Chi-Raq's humanistic message is the contrast between the film's beginning and its conclusion. The film remains on a black screen as Cannon himself bitterly raps about how he doesn't live in "Chicago," but instead the bleak war-zone of "Chi-Raq," with the song's lyrics appearing on-screen like a music video. But the film closes with Jackson's chorus, Dolemedes, standing in front of a giant American flag (in an overt homage to the opening scene of the 1970 classic Patton) and expressing hope that "Chi-Raq" can one day return to being "Chicago."
As is the case for most other Spike Lee "joints," behind all the violence, angry dialogue, and scathing ridicule for America's problems is Lee's deep love and optimism for his country and its diverse people. Chi-Raq is available for free streaming on Amazon Prime Video through this link.
